“He’s Mexican and his name’s Hector. That’s about all I got. Come on, Bob, let’s get him into the back of the car and call the cops.”
When they got him in the car and Strohmeyer had called it in, Healy was curious as to why he had called the cops.
“This is just the kind of stuff we want in the papers, Bob. The media hates us, but my father says that doesn’t mean we can’t use them. You yourself brought up the murders. Before these guys got here, how many murders do you think there were around here in a given year? How much gang activity? How many bar fights on a snowy Tuesday night? Like my father says, it just proves we are right. The people on this island will be overrun. The more coverage, the better. Just one thing, when the cops get here don’t mention that we are out on patrol. That’s the rule. We don’t want the cops thinking we did this.”
So far this kid was failing all the tests. He wasn’t a screed spewing, halfwit, hate monger. He really seemed to think things through. His only blind spot appeared to be his father’s teachings, which he accepted without question. He wouldn’t be the first. He had been gentle and respectful of the guy now bleeding all over his backseat. Healy couldn’t help but root for the kid.
But if he was wrong about Pete Jr., where did that leave him? Where did it leave Serpe? Maybe he and Joe had been too quick to trust the word of some shithead gang leader. The truth was that the only two people with any viable connection to Cain Cohen’s homicide were themselves dead. There wasn’t a lot here to be encouraged about. Or maybe, Healy thought, staring at Peter Strohmeyer Jr., there was.
A cop showed in about five minutes. Officer Martinez, a handsome twenty-something cop with a white smile and neat mustache, seemed almost happy to have something to do.
“Pretty quiet tonight?” Healy asked.
“This weather, shit. It’s dead out here, not even many fender benders. It’s a night for staying home, for getting under the covers with someone to keep you warm. You know what I’m saying?”
One look at Hector and the cop called an ambulance. He didn’t even bother trying to question him. Bob and Pete Jr. gave their stories, the ambulance came, and they said goodnight to the cop. When the cop left and the patrol started up again, something had changed.
“See the blood there on the backseat, Bob? That blood there is the problem. You get all these men, they come to our country. They have one purpose in coming-to make money and send it back to the sewers they came from. They’re not like your ancestors or mine. They don’t want to be Americans. They don’t bring their families. They don’t bring their women. They’re lonely with a lot of time on their hands. It’s not natural. They get shitfaced, get in fights. They take our jobs and some of them, the slick ones, the ones with a little English, they’re. They’re the real dangerous ones.”
Healy couldn’t believe it. It was as if someone had thrown a switch in the kid’s head. Not only had his demeanor and his language changed, but he had gotten louder, angrier. This was more of what Healy had expected. Something the cop had said must have set him off. Maybe not, maybe it was the cop himself. It was both, Healy decided. Officer Martinez had commented about getting under the covers with someone to keep you warm.
A woman! What else? Now it started to make some sense. Healy couldn’t afford to let young Strohmeyer regain his equilibrium.
“Yeah,” Bob agreed. “I’m happy that my daughter’s grown up and moved off the island. I don’t think I could have stomached her bringing Hector over for Thanksgiving dinner. If my Mary wasn’t dead already, that would’ve killed her for sure.”
Pete Jr. didn’t answer immediately. His silence had nothing to do with careful contemplation of his response. No, his fingers got so tight on the steering wheel that all the blood went out of them. It was easy to see where the blood in the kid’s fingers had gone as his face turned an angry shade of red. He started driving a little faster, his steering became more erratic. Still, he said nothing. Healy turned up the heat.
“When Colleen, that’s my daughter, was a freshman at C.W. Post, she had a roommate, nice girl named Ava. Ava was from the Midwest somewheres, Ohio maybe. Anyway, Collie used to bring her over to the house for holidays when she couldn’t afford to go back home. Ava began dating this really good guy, Brad. Athletic, smart, respectful; a man not unlike you, a man with a plan. We had him over to the house, too. Frankly, I wished he was dating my daughter.
“Then in sophomore year, things changed. Collie was home for spring break. She and her boyfriend were going on a double date with Ava. Mary and me just assumed it was gonna be Ava and Brad. We got some surprise when the car pulled up in front of the house. It was like one of those weird old Chevies with a sparkly green paint job that sat like six inches off the ground. What do they call those things?”
“Out west we call them lowriders,” Strohmeyer said through clenched teeth.
“That’s it. That’s right. So, Ava and this little guy come bouncing out of the car. He doesn’t shake my hand, asks for a beer, and screams at my daughter to hurry up.”
“Did you throw the little cocksucker out of your house?”
“Didn’t have to. One look at this guy and Colleen’s boyfriend says they’re running late and that they’ll meet them at the restaurant.”
“What happened to your daughter’s friend?”
“The guy knocked her up and abandoned her. After that, we kind of lost track of Ava. I can’t help but wonder about her sometimes.”
Peter Strohmeyer Jr. slammed his good hand against the dashboard. “Fuck, that’s what I told Cathy was going to happen to her, but she won’t listen to me, Bob. She won’t even talk to me anymore.”
“You wanna tell me about it?”
“I can’t. My father says a man deals with his troubles by himself.”
“Hey, Pete, no disrespect to your father, but I’m a dad, too. I’ve made a lot of bad decisions and given my kids some awful advice. Fathers don’t know as much as you think. And besides, you’re your own man now. Don’t you think there are some things you can make your own decisions about?”
He hesitated. “I guess you’re right.”
“I’m listening.”
And listen he did.
It wasn’t a very remarkable story. Pete Jr. had met Cathy at a bar in Selden. She was pretty, bright, and worldly, more worldly than the girls he knew back in Arizona. She had grown up in Manhattan and was in her first year at Touro Law School. To keep her expenses at a minimum, she was living with an aunt in Ronkonkoma and working as a bartender on the weekends. To hear Peter tell it, Cathy was the one. The feeling wasn’t exactly mutual. She liked him well enough. The sex had been unbelievable-though he admitted to not having had a whole lot of previous experience. Healy recalled the first time he had mistaken sex for love and how deeply it had hurt. But sympathy was something he couldn’t afford to offer at the moment.
“So what happened?”
“She told me she didn’t want to date me anymore, that it was okay for us to hang out sometimes, even for us to fuck once in a while if we both felt like it.”
“What did you say?”
“What could I say? I didn’t want to lose her. And I guess I understood where she was coming from. I think she wanted-”
“Okay, Pete, she’s the best thing since Paris Hilton, but it sounds to me like you’re gonna start making excuses for her.”
“Sorry.”
“No apologies necessary, but something else musta happened.”
“I followed her. You get pretty good at it, doing this patrolling and all. And my father taught me how to be a good hunter.”
Strohmeyer Jr. explained that he spent days following her around and that he was pretty convinced their breakup wasn’t about another man. Then, on Valentine’s Day, he decided he’d try a grand gesture. He waited in the bar parking lot for the end of her shift, two dozen boxed red roses on the seat next to him, and an engagement ring in his jacket pocket. But when Cathy came out of the bar she was holding hands with this bar back, Garcia. They went to her car. He watched them makeout, watched her go down on him.